U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

Scott Armstrong and Kesten Green are two of the over 400 prominent scientists featured in a Senate Report debunking the scientific “consensus” on global warming. The report was released December 20th, 2007, and can be accessed at the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works site. The following is a selected excerpt citing Armstrong’s climate challenge to Al Gore, scientific forecasts versus forecasts by scientists, and the recent study of polar bear prediction methodology.

Internationally known forecasting pioneer Dr. Scott Armstrong of the Wharton School at the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and his colleague Kesten Green of Monash University in Australia challenged Gore to a $10,000 bet in June 2007 over the accuracy of climate computer models predictions. “Claims that the Earth will get warmer have no more credence than saying that it will get colder.” According to Armstrong, the author of Long-Range Forecasting, the most frequently cited book on forecasting methods, “Of 89 principles [of forecasting], the [UN] IPCC violated 72.” Armstrong and Green also critiqued the Associated Press for hyping climate fears in 2007. “Dire consequences have been predicted to arise from warming of the Earth in coming decades of the 21st century. Enormous sea level rise is one of the more dramatic forecasts. According to the AP‘s Borenstein, such sea-level forecasts were experts’ judgments on what will happen,” Armstrong and Green wrote to EPW on September 23, 2007.

“As shown in our analysis, experts’ forecasts have no validity in situations characterized by high complexity, high uncertainty, and poor feedback. To date we are unaware of any forecasts of sea levels that adhere to proper [scientific] forecasting methodology and our quick search on Google Scholar came up short,” Armstrong and Green explained. “Media outlets should be clear when they are reporting on scientific work and when they are reporting on the opinions held by some scientists. Without scientific support for their forecasting methods, the concerns of scientists should not be used as a basis for public policy,” they concluded. (LINK)

Armstrong and Green also co-authored a November 29, 2007 paper with astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon which fond that polar bear extinction predictions violate “scientific forecasting procedures.” The study analyzed the methodology of key polar bear predictions and found that the a study had “extrapolated nearly 100 years into the future on the basis of only five years data – and data for these years were of doubtful validity.” The study concluded that “experts’ predictions, unaided by evidence-based forecasting procedures, should play no role in this decision [to list polar bear as endangered]. Without scientific forecasts of a substantial decline of the polar bear population and of net benefits from feasible policies arising from listing polar bears, a decision to list polar bears as threatened or endangered would be irresponsible.” (LINK)